(It would makemefeel better. And that’s what’s important here, isn’t it?)
I gave him a weak smile and patted his neck. “Maybe next time.”
Bastian moved closer to me. “An exhausting bastard, isn’t he?”
“Yes. But maybe he has a point,” I said quietly.
My brother lifted a brow.
“What if Ican’tdraw more magic into this world by myself, no matter how many stupid practice sessions I suffer through with Eamon? The stone was barely pulsing when we checked on it yesterday. And nothing I’ve tried to do has reawakened it. The amount of magic trickling down into Noctaris is pitiful, really, and every trip we take to Midna feels more useless than the last.”
He shook his head. “You brought back an incredible amount of information yesterday—knowledge we can use to plot out our next steps. That’s plenty useful.”
“Knowledge isn’t going to keep war from breaking out if the other leaders of our world get impatient. Not to mention the threat of Lorien and whatever chaos he’s planning from the Above. It feels like we’re balancing on the edge of a cliff, doesn’t it?”
Bastian ran another few soothing strokes over his scourge stallion’s dark coat; the creature’s eyes were wide, its ears and tail twitching. Restless and ready to bolt into the distant shadows and not look back.
I understood the sentiment.
“There are answers out there, whether in the middle realm or otherwise,” Bastian insisted. “Paths to a more permanent, more complete solution. We just haven’t found them yet.”
I tried to believe him, ignoring the heaviness in my heart. “You’ve managed to decipher some of what we brought back?”
He nodded. “Eamon planned to leave our notes in your office for you to look over,” he said. “He was working at a frenzied pace when I left him this morning; I don’t think he slept. So, there will be lots of half-legible ramblings for you to look over, if nothing else.”
I took a deep breath, looking one last time at the camp around us. It seemed so meager against the great expanse of darkness beyond.
The idea of locking myself in my office and searching for something—anything—to give us more hope suddenly seemed incredibly appealing.
“I’ve seen enough,” I told Bastian. “Let’s head back.”
The palace wasabuzz with movement when we returned—the patter of restless boots upon the marble floors; the voices of our visitors arguing in borrowed chambers; the guards and servants hurrying through the halls, trying to impose some kind of order over everything.
I ignored it all as I made my way toward my office on the second floor, pausing only to duck into my room and grab the bundle of notes I’d left on my bed. Phantom stayed behind on that bed at my insistence; he was a distracting force whenever Ibrought him into my office, always bored and incessantly pacing or trying to get me to play fetch within the first hour I shut myself in.
I cloaked myself in shadows as I walked from my room to the office, letting darkness bleed from my skin in soft, subtle waves. The power worked twofold, both snuffing out any light I passed and helping me blend into the darkness that followed that extinguishing.
In this way, I slipped largely unnoticed into my refuge, closing the door behind me and leaning against it for a moment. The silence on the other side of the heavy door was like a welcome, long-awaited embrace.
I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths—the deepest I’d managed all day. The scent of ink, old books, and candle wax washed over me, warming me from the inside out.
“I was beginning to think you’d never show up.”
My eyes flashed open. I turned toward the voice and gasped, my notes slipping from my grasp and scattering across the floor.
Aleksander was waiting for me, leaning casually against my desk.
SIX
Nova
Itried to say his name.
Nothing but breath came out.
Once that breath escaped, I couldn’t draw it back. My chest felt as if it were cracking in two, my lungs collapsing into the chasm between the halves, and…how could I breathe? How was I supposed to fuckingbreathe?—
He was here.
